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The parts of a successive whole are presented to the mind by Narration.
NARRATION. NARRATION is the presentation to the mind of the „mods of a successive whole. Its theme is a series of related events occurring in time. Language, being it¬self related to time as a succession of signs, is particu¬larly adapted to narration. This form of discourse presents three principal problems : (1) the SELECTION OF SUITABLE CIRCUMSTANCES; (2) the REPRESENTA¬TION OF EVENTS IN THEIR PROPER SEQUENCE; and (3) the REPRESENTATION OF SYNCHRONISTIC EVENTS SO AS TO SHOW THEIR TRUE RELATIONS. These problems will be discussed in the following sections. No dis¬tinction is necessary between real and invented events, since the aim of fiction is to counterfeit reality. SECTION I. THE SELECTION OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 1. Purpose. The selection of circumstances depends greatly on the purpose for which a narrative is composed. We may give special attention to the temporal element, and so produce mere annals or chronicles ; we may relate the changes to which any thing has been sub¬jected, and so narrate its history ; we may explain the causes which have been operative in effecting those changes, and so construct a philosophical history. We may write the history of a country, England for ex¬ample, to illustrate the progress of literature, science, or civil institutions. In all these cases, our purpose must govern our selection of circumstances from the great mass of facts. The same law of purpose is of equal authority, no matter what the character of the narrative, whether a nation's history, or a short anecdote. 2. Unity. We should be influenced in the selection of materials by the law of unity. This requires that all the elements of a narrative be parts of a great whole, and organically related with one another. The introduction of collat¬eral circumstances having no bearing upon the main conception is a violation of this law. Loose narrators are prone to digress into episode, and thus mar the ef¬fect of their narrative. Writers of fiction who are paid for the quantity of their work are specially in danger of this gross fault. In following the fortunes of a hero, we do not need to be told of the personal habits of his distanfrelatives. This prohibition of unrelated details ought not to be understood as a condemnation of ap¬propriate details on the ground of their individual in¬significance. The minutest particulars, if they have a direct bearing, are often the most significant and indis¬pensable. 3. Completeness. Sufficient fullness to maintain the interest and to explain important occurrences, is necessary to a suc¬cessful narrative. Few minds are interested in mere compends and abstracts. Specific details fix the Wen. tion and fasten events in the memory. A narrative has an artificial appearance if each event be not explained by the preceding events. The omission of details is therefore injurious to the effect, when they are vitally connected with the succession of incidents. No history is complete without occasional references to contempo¬raneous facts in other departments. A history of literature which should take no notice of those social and political revolutions which produce great men and generate epoch-making ideas, would be unworthy of being called a history. 4. Brevity. Prolixity is the bane of effective narrative. Novels in two or three thick volumes, recounting the insipid adventures of some common-place personage, are the most tedious of literary creations. Histories which spin out the thread of events to undue length, though often praised and quoted, are seldom consecutively read. The memory can retain only a limited number of details, and narratives constructed without refer¬ence to the natural limits of this faculty, are almost sure to pay the penalty of dullness. Vivacity, also, as in description, is secured by confining the narrative to what is essential. SECTION II. THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS. 1. Time. It is important to a narrative that its incidents be related in the chronological order in which they occur. This is usually the philosophical order, for events are not mere isolated links, but form part of an endless chain of antecedents and consequents, each of which is a cause of its consequent, and an effect of its antece¬dent. A narrator rises in dignity in proportion as he becomes a philosopher, and explains the events be narrates. This requires a constant reference to the actual sequence of events in time. Chronology and geography have been aptly called the two eyes of his¬tory. Chronology, by a different metaphor, has been called the latitude and longitude of narrative. The reader misses a marginal chronology in Gibbon's great history. 2. Reasons for Violating the Order of Time. Sometimes it may be desirable to violate the actual order of events for a special reason. Thus Virgil, in the "2Eneid," first describes the storm which wrecked the fleet of his hero, and threw him upon the. African coast, and then causes him to relate to Queen Dido his own previous adventures. Homer had employed a similar plan in the "Odyssey," where Odysseus is re¬presented-as recounting his misfortunes to the Plueacian court. In these cases the violation of the natural order is for the obvious purpose of allowing the hero to add the charm of personal narration to the story of his wanderings. George Eliot has used a similar inver¬sion for a different purpose. In "Daniel Deronda," the heroine is introduced to the reader as a desperate pleasure-seeker in a gambling scene. The remainder of the story is to a great extent occupied with a retro¬spective history of her life. The obvious design- of the inversion is to absorb the reader's attention and inter est in the chain of events which brought Gwendolen Harleth to the gaming table. 8. Retrospective References. A backward reference may be necessary in placing the true order of events before the mind. Macaulay, in his "History of England," introduces his account of the period about which he specially writes with a prefatory summary of English history from the Roman invasion. Thus his readers are prepared to place the events which make up the history in their proper relations with their antecedents. A plan somewhat different from this is, to describe a recent or existing state of affairs, and then to point out the causes which have produced it. An acquaintance with present facts interests us in their antecedents. In his "Elements of Geology," Sir Charles Lyell has first shown what is to be accounted for, and then proceeds to narrate the geological history of previous ages, by which he ac¬counts for the present state of the globe. 4. Probability. Probability ought to be attended to in a narrative. It depends greatly upon the order of events whether or not they seem probable. Writers are most in danger of making their story improbable when there are many concurrent events having a causal relation, but which are not brought into one view. This leads us to the topic of the next section, in which the best modes of surmounting this obstacle will be pointed out SECTION IIL SYNCHRONISM Or EVENTS. 1. Kinds of Concurrence. The chief difficulties of narration arise when con¬curring streams of events have to be exhibited ,as con¬temporaneous in order to show their actual relations. This concurrence is of several kinds. (1) Plurality of Departmenta—The life of a nation is complex. One department acts upon another, and is acted upon by other departments. Military, political, social, literary, and scientific life all flow on together, and their currents ever mingle and impart color to one another. The highest genius is requisite to exhibit all these various modes of progress in a true panoramic view. (2) Contending Parties.—The historian ought to rise above the advocate, and, when there are two sides, he is under obligation to represent both. In depicting any kind of conflict, where the movements of both sides are to be narrated, there is great danger of con¬fusion from a frequent shifting of the point of view. Few historians have the advantage of Kinglake at the Alma, where, as an eye-witness, he retains his point of view throughout the conflict. Those who compile from the accounts of many witnesses are in danger of sacri¬ficing unity, and of blurring the whole picture. (8) Principal and Subordinate Aotione.—In a biography, or the narration of a campaign or voyage, the events are not all of the same rank. Some are principal, others merely subordinate. These must be carefully distinguished, and prominence must be given to the principal events, while the minor incidents must be duly subordinated. (4) Different Countries.—The history of some countries, Greece for example, is the history of a single race, but at the same time consists of a plurality of histories. Sparta, Athens, and Thebes live an inde¬pendent life. The historian of Greece must carry along the story of all these states, with their numerous colo¬nies, so as to maintain unity, and at the same time to give to each state its separate place in the narrative. The difficulty is increased when the historian attempts to narrate the concurrent progress of states less inti¬mately connected, as in a history of Europe or of the world. Here the highest genius is necessary to success. An interesting universal history is more difficult than an epic poem, and it may be said that the problem of its production remains unsolved. 2. Means of Expressing Synchronism. The expedients resorted to in representing contem¬poraneous events are of great practical value, yet they leave many things for genius to solve in its own mys¬terious way. Macaulay was gifted, perhaps beyond all other men, with the power of seeing periods of history as organic wholes, and has succeeded in presenting them as such. Taine thus speaks of this gift : "So many accumulated events form with him not a total, but a whole. Explanations, accounts, dissertations, anec¬dotes, illustrations, comparisons, allusions to modern events, everything is connected in his book. It is because everything is connected in his mind. He had a most lively consciousness of causes ; and causes unite facts. By them scattered events are assembled into a single event ; they unite them because they pro¬duce them, and the historian who seeks them all out, cannot fail to perceive or to feel the unity which is their effect." * Of the ordinary means of overcoming the difficul¬ties of synchronism, we may mention the following : (1) Sensible POTIES.—Charts in the form of trees, streams, and other physical objects, may be helpful in fixing the relations of periods in the mind. In written history they are of very great service, but even in speaking they may often be employed. Here the met¬aphor or simile takes the place of the actual chart. For example, in tracing the history of the Indo-Eu¬ropean family, the migrations of that race may be rep¬resented under the figure of seven streams diverging from a common fountain, and, although each is fol¬lowed separately, the mind will readily perceive that the others are flowing simultaneously, and this may be indicated by concentric circles intersecting the streams and representing centuries. (2) Analysis.—A perspicuous division into chapters and sections assists the mind in associating synchronistic events. Hence every complicated narrative should be so divided as to suggest the parallel occurrences. The division of history according to reigns is not so philo¬sophical as a division according to great historic move¬ments. In composing the biography of a great man, it would be absurd to divide his life according to the contemporary presidents. In every life, individual or national, there are causes which impel the man or the nation in certain different directions. These are the true outlines of analysis, and give rise to distinct epochs. (3) Summary.—A condensed summary of a pe riod may be useful in setting events necessarily sepa¬rated in the progress of the narrative in their proper chronological relations. Such abridgments serve the same purpose as maps after an observation of the ground. They correct the erroneous impressions re¬sulting from detached views. The proper place for a summary depends upon circumstances. If interest in the plot will be diminished by a revelation of it, the summary ought not to be presented in the introduction. If, however, by coming first it will abridge the process of arrangement in the mind of the reader, it may be placed at the beginning, as a topographical map is spread out before a campaign. Usually the summary is retrospective. Coming after the detailed narrative, it serves to straighten the entangled threads of the story.